Press Releases

I strongly condemn yesterday's attack on a NATO convoy in the Kandahar province of Afghanistan, which left two US soldiers dead and four more wounded. I offer my sincere condolences to the families and loved ones of the fallen, and wish a speedy recovery to the injured.

Democracy and rule of law are shared values of NATO Allies. On the first anniversary of the coup attempt in Turkey I reiterate my strong message that any attempt to undermine democracy in any of our Allied countries is unacceptable.

The North Atlantic Council (NAC) condemns in the strongest possible terms the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's (DPRK) unprecedented launch of a ballistic missile of intercontinental range on 4 July, a major escalation that directly violates multiple United Nations (UN) Security Council resolutions and clearly demonstrates the growing threat posed by the DPRK to the Alliance, to global peace and security, as well as to the global non-proliferation regime. We are supportive of efforts underway at the United Nations to impose additional sanctions on the DPRK, and call for all nations to fully implement existing UN sanctions and make further efforts to apply decisive pressure to convince the DPRK regime to abandon its current threatening and destabilising path.

On Wednesday 12 July, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg will welcome to NATO Headquarters, Mr. Arnaud Danjean, Member of the European Parliament and Chairman of the French drafting board working on a strategic review of national defence and security.

NATO collects defence expenditure data from Allies on a regular basis and presents aggregates and subsets of this information. Each Ally’s Ministry of Defence reports current and estimated future defence expenditure according to an agreed definition of defence expenditure. The amounts represent payments by a national government actually made, or to be made, during the course of the fiscal year to meet the needs of its armed forces, those of Allies or of the Alliance. NATO also makes use of up-to-date economic and demographic information available from the Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs of the European Commission (DG-ECFIN), and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).